Vanderbilt Commodores Must Stop Auburn Star In Order to Win on Saturday
A milestone moment could be made in the Clark Lea coaching era with the Vanderbilt Commodores this Saturday. The team is only one win away from reaching their first bowl game since the 2018 season.
The team enters the weekend 5-3 (3-1 in SEC play) with four games left on the schedule. All remaining games are against tough conference opponents. The Commodores enter the weekend with a 76 percent chance to reach six wins on the season, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI). If the program wants to pick up that sixth win of the season, this upcoming game against the Auburn Tigers may be their best chance.
The Tigers (3-5, 1-3 in SEC) are coming off their first win in the conference, however, against the Kentucky Wildcats. While doing so, they seemed to find a new identity on offense as well. The team focused more on the running game, handing the ball off to star running back Jarquez Hunter 23 times in the 24-10 victory.
That season's high in carries led to the senior from Philadelphia, Mississippi, recording one of the best rushing performances in Auburn Football history. Hunter rushed for 278 yards and found the endzone twice in the victory. His performance now has the fourth-most rushing yards in a single game in program history. It earned him SEC Offensive Player of the Week honors and put him in the conference lead for rushing yards.
Although the Commodores held the Texas Longhorns to only 104 yards on the ground rushing, they still struggled to stop them on critical plays that resulted in drives extending first downs. They must clean it up this weekend if they hope to slow down Hunter, who is bound to see 20+ carries in the contest yet again.
As for the Vanderbilt head coach, he is well aware of what the running back can do against one of his defenses.
“I think he‘s probably the best running back we’ve faced,” Lea said during a press conference this past week. “He made us pay a year ago too.”
Last year, Auburn defeated the Commodores, like all teams in the SEC, 31-15 in Nashville. Hunter earned himself a career-high 183 yards against the Commodores, a milestone that held for him only until last week’s dominant performance against Kentucky.
Vanderbilt is not looking for a repeat of last season. And nor should they.
This program is much improved from last season's 2-10 team and has shown they can keep up with even the top teams in the country.
Lea admitted this week that Hunter “will get some plays” which seems inevitable with the way Auburn’s head coach, Hugh Freeze, looks to utilize him for the rest of the season. Big plays were something that he also did in last year’s explosive outing when he had 121 yards after only three carries.
Lea stated that the team is “spending a lot of time on tackling fundamentals and talking about the need to finish on the body to have a chance to down him.” The Vanderbilt head coach believed that “last year, we were chasing the ball down a bunch, and you don’t want to be trying to collapse the edge from outside in with him on a vertical cut. I can tell you that.”
The Commodores will be on the road at Jordan-Hare stadium as they play their matchup with Auburn this Saturday. The game is scheduled to kick off at 12:45 pm ET and will be available on SEC Network.
